Sidney Altman

Sidney Altman
(1939)

Canadian-American molecular biologist who, with Thomas R. Cech , received
the 1989 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their discoveries concerning
RNA, or ribonucleic acid.
Altman attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.S., 1960,
in physics) and the University of Colorado (Ph.D., 1967, in biophysics).
He was a molecular biology fellow at Harvard University (1967-69) and
at the University of Cambridge (1969-70) before joining the biology
faculty at Yale University in 1971. He became a full professor at Yale
in 1980, was the department chairman from 1983 to 1985, and served as
dean of the undergraduate Yale College from 1985 to 1989. He took U.S.
citizenship in 1984 but concurrently retained his Canadian citizenship.

Working independently, Altman and Cech discovered a new role for RNA.
The old belief was that enzymatic activity--the triggering and acceleration
of vital chemical reactions within living cells--was the exclusive domain
of protein molecules. Altman's and Cech's revolutionary discovery was
that RNA, traditionally thought to be simply a passive carrier of genetic
codes between different parts of the living cell, could also take on
active enzymatic functions. This new knowledge opened up new fields
of scientific research and biotechnology and caused scientists to rethink
old theories of how cells function.